The Five

by Nhys Glover

  "One of the soldiers was captured during the breakout and he gave us information. The shadow government is setting itself up in Cliffling territory. It seems that the Godling has promised them a legitimate place in the new kinglunds if they join him, and so they have."

  "Not Godling. While ever you give him that name you give him power. He is simply an ex-Royal without magic," Airsha snapped in annoyance. "And it's typical of them to promise legitimacy to those previously shunned. That's what my father did with the Abs. He's as likely to keep his promise to them as my father would have to the Abs."

  The Abominations no longer existed. They were all Elemental Masters and doing their part for the reconstruction. Most of the other magical sons had reluctantly accepted them into their ranks, although there was still some prejudice. Just as there was prejudice against the Elemental Mistresses. The idea that women couldn't and shouldn't have magic was hard to weed out, particularly in old Godslund.

  "But this is bad news. The Clifflings are vicious and underhand. If they have chosen to side with the... old guard... it could mean trouble." Rama's voice held an undertone of pain that had its origin in his past when he was captured and tortured by those horrors. Though he was healed for the most part, he still carried the scars on his body and in his mind.

  "What does the governor want us to do?" Darkin asked Ralic.

  "Governor Moyna wants the Goddess Incarnate to return to the palace at once, for safekeeping. And she's recalling all Elemental Masters and Mistresses to the capital."

  I saw Airsha glance her mother's way. Their expressions required no interpretation. They had been looking forward to seeing more of each other now Airsha had done her bit to get the fledgling government up and running and had handed it over to those better able to rule. Now it seemed she was being pulled back into the prison, which had been her home for the first eighteen suncycles of her life. This time for her safety.

  Airsha began to say something when her face froze. At the same moment, I felt a sharp stinging sensation at my wrist. I gasped with pain and glanced down. In my periphery, I saw Zem grimace and glance down at his inner wrist too. Whatever was happening to me was happening to him as well.

  In dumbfounded amazement and pain, I watched a red welt begin to appear. Over a series of blinks of an eye, it darkened and formed into the distinct shape of a five-pointed star. By the time it stopped hurting, a mark—which looked like a brand used on beastlings—had formed. But unlike a brand, it had no roughly burned scar-tissue around the edges. The skin hadn’t been damaged.

  “The false gods’ man is about to unleash The Jayger back into the world,” Airsha intoned in a voice very different to her own. “I fought The Jayger many millennia ago for this world and the life on it. After many losses I finally managed to imprison it in the Underworld. Now the false gods’ man believes he can harness this evil for his own ends. He is a fool. It will destroy him, as it will destroy all life on this world. Unless it is stopped. Only The Five can stop it. Only The Five can return it to its prison.”

  “The five?” Darkin prompted, his serious face a picture of deep intent. He, like the rest of us, knew the person speaking was not his wife.

  “Five are marked and gifted with my magic. Their power is strong. But only when their magic is united will their power be sufficient to battle The Jayger, and only with the key to the Underworld will they be able to lock it away once more.” Airsha turned her glowing eyes on me and then on Zem. “Find the other points, forge a unity of mind, body and soul, seek out the key, and do battle with The Jayger. Victory is not assured, but the destruction of all you hold dear, all I have created, is assured if you fail, my champions.”

  “Champions?” I croaked out, not liking the sound of this.

  Airsha nodded slowly, her gaze moving between Zem and me as she did so.

  “How do you kn... How do we forge this bond?” Zem demanded, using his warrior voice. When had he slipped from shy young man into powerful warrior-mode?

  “Love and respect. Only when all surrender their power, hearts and bodies to each other will the bond be forged. Four men drawn to one woman—the lodestone who will connect them all.”

  As suddenly as it had happened, it was over. Airsha collapsed like a rag doll against Darkin’s shoulder, and he drew her in close, as if to shield her from the aftermath of what had happened. Nobody spoke. Nobody seemed to even breathe.

  My mind was in chaos, as was Zem’s. I intentionally tried to keep everyone else out, even Calun, who was staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. Unfortunately I wasn’t good at tuning out other’s thoughts. But I didn’t want to know what my brother was thinking, what they were all thinking about this latest whim of the Goddess.

  Hadn’t she finished messing with us? Hadn’t we fought and won her war for her? Now she wanted more?

  “What’s on your wrist?” Jaron asked, his usually jovial tone missing, his too-handsome face oddly strained.

  Absently, I looked down at the brand at my wrist. A five-pointed star. Find the other points, the Goddess had said.

  “A brand of some kind. Shaped like a five-pointed star,” Zem answered for both of us. I was beyond words.

  Jaron huffed out a relieved sigh. “Okay, so it’s not Airsha that the Goddess is talking about.”

  “She is one woman who drew four men,” I croaked out, desperately looking for some other answer, even if it meant throwing Airsha and the Airluds into the firepit in my stead. Though even as I did it, I knew it couldn’t be them.

  “We have already forged our bond. The Goddess looked right at you and Zem and said you have to find the other points—I assume to the star—and forge a bond. You two have magic, the other three men will also be magical sons,” Rama said tersely, shifting Ramin in his arms so he could press in close to Airsha’s other side. Up until now there’d been a little distance between each of them as the three sat with their backs against the rough-hewn timber of the homestead. When Airsha collapsed against Darkin, Rama had automatically drawn in close.

  They always made a startling image, Airsha between one dark-haired man and one light. It was like looking at Airsha’s light and shadow sides, yet in reverse. Darkin, his midnight black hair should have been the shadow, but it was actually Rama, with his light skin and blonde hair who was the shadow—his scarred face the outward reflection of his inner, tortured soul. Though it was much less dark these days.

  “Flea, this is you and Zem, you know that,” Jaron told me like a school teacher reminding a troublesome student of a lesson she’d supposedly already learned. I was reminded of his lecture a few days earlier. When had he become so... so old.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m nobody’s champion. And I’m certainly not forging a bond with a bunch of strangers just so we can fight some world-destroying evil. I did my bit to save the world. Now it’s someone else’s turn.” I could hear the note of hysteria in my voice, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want a harem, because that was what the Goddess meant. One woman and four men bound together on all levels by love and respect—had to be a harem.

  ‘Flea, you’re marked,’ Calun said into my head. It annoyed me how easily he’d gotten past my flimsy barriers to make me hear him.

  “I don’t give a fraggin’ hornybug if I’m marked. I’m not taking four men to my bed. I’m not taking one to my bed! I’ll turn whore for nobody, not even the fraggin’ Goddess of All Creation!” I cried, real fear surfacing at last.

  Airsha had recovered enough to sit up and look from me to Zem and back again, her expression compassionate this time. Her Goddess-face was never compassionate.

  “Nobody is going to force you to share anyone’s bed, Flea. The Goddess can’t make you do such a thing, and none of us would suggest it, either. But you can find the other three and seek out this key that will lock this monster back in the Underworld. You can at least do that, can’t you?”

  “Can’t we stop the Godling—sorry, the ex-Godling—from releasing this evil? Then we won’t have t
o forge any bond,” Zem suggested, surprisingly calm for someone who has just been told he was going to take on a world-destroying evil.

  “From the sound of it, it’s a done deal,” Jaron said, as if discussing the cost of winter grasses for the airlings.

  “Airsha’s nephew only just escaped. Surely he has a journey ahead of him to get to the Clifflings. Then he has to work out how to release this Jayger thing,” Rama said with more heat.

  “The Goddess said he was about to release this great evil. So, yeah, it’s not yet done. But the Goddess seems certain it will be done. I think we have to do what we can to stop it happening, and Flea and Zem have to be the back-up plan. Find the other magical sons and this key and be ready to fight if this thing gets loose.” Darkin’s words were slow and thoughtful.

  He turned to Ralic. “How long ago did he escape?”

  “Last night. I was sent as soon as the interrogation threw up news of the Go...ex-Godling’s plans,” Ralic provided nervously. He kept checking his own wrist, as if expecting a brand to appear there. It didn’t, of course, because he wasn’t a mage.

  How in the gods’ names were we to find three other mage’s with brands on their wrists? I had to assume they got their marks at the same time we did. They were probably staring at their inner arms right now wondering what had happened to them.

  “We’ll likely find the others at the gathering of mages,” Zem announced, his forehead puckered.

  “Aye. Airsha, do you have any sense of where they can find these other men?” Darkin asked his wife, who was also frowning deeply.

  She shook her head. “No. It was like a door opened, the information was thrust out through it, and then the door closed again. What we were told is all there is.”

  “Then we have to assume the Goddess will make sure The Five connect, just as She made sure you’d find us,” Jaron said, rubbing Airsha’s knee.

  It was as if he was consoling her. But she wasn’t the one who was being asked to go into danger. She was going to be closeted safely out of harms’ way.

  “This is too much to expect of them. We have to help. I have to help,” Airsha argued.

  Now I understood Jaron’s actions. He knew Airsha would feel bad for somehow lumping this on us. As if she’d done it, not the Goddess. But it wasn’t her fault. None of this was.

  “You have to stay safe,” Darkin said in his no-nonsense tone.

  Airsha huffed out an exasperated sigh. “I am more capable of looking after myself than any of you are. Mother, you can take the children to the Godslund palace, can’t you? While we join the search party?”

  Airsha’s mother looked from one of her daughter’s concerned husbands to the next, finally ending with a glance at her own. I knew she wouldn’t want to go back to Godslund, especially not to the old palace where she’d been locked away in a closed harem for more than twenty sun-cycles. But she also knew that she and the children were Airsha’s weak point. If the ex-Godling took them, then Airsha would be his too. She would never let anything happen to her mother or her childlings.

  “I can do that. Beyen can join the search as well.”

  The white-haired fisherman nodded his agreement and tightened his hold on his wife’s shoulder. I hadn’t noticed that he’d placed a comforting hand on her shoulder some time during the last quarter turn. Had it only been that long since the peace and contentment of our lives had been turned on its head? I hated how easily that happened.

  “Then we all leave for the capital as soon as we can make ready. Flea and Zem, you head off straight away. The sooner you can start tracking down the other three the better,” Darkin told us.

  I glanced at Zem who was nodding his agreement. It amazed me how easily he had accepted all that was happening. In his head he was already plotting our steps to the palace, over and over again, allowing no room for any thoughts of what this might mean to us or the world. Just the same damn steps, over and over again. He could control those steps. He could successfully navigate those steps. The rest... the rest was chaos. And he wasn’t ready to look at the chaos yet.

  And neither was I.

  I was the lodestone that would draw the three other men to us. To me. I was the one who would have to find a way to bind us all together, because we would only be able to succeed together. Our powers were limited individually, but together we would have some kind of synergy.

  Men found me attractive, I knew that. I was no idiot. I was pretty and men liked my red hair and hazel eyes that could be brown or green in different situations. But there was a big difference between a passing attraction and the magnetic draw that the Goddess was talking about. The kind of draw that had brought four Airluds to Airsha’s bed and bound them to her more tightly than any bond I’d ever seen. My Dah and Mam loved each other, but it was nothing compared with the way these five loved. It was as if they were one being, not five separate ones.

  I could never have that. No man could ever want me like that. Even Zem, who loved me, didn’t love me like that. As if my every breath was his. My every heartbeat his own. He loved me as a best friend, as his only family. I didn’t underestimate it, I just knew its limits. No one loved like Airsha and the Airluds.

  No one.

  Chapter Two

  I lay staring up at the ceiling in the airling trooper’s dormitory where I had my own room. The journey to the old Godling’s palace, now referred to as the Airshan Capital buildings— when anyone could remember to use its new name—had been problem-free. At least as much as we met no physical threats along the way.

  In my head there’d been problems aplenty and no time to talk to Zem about them all. We’d been hustled down to the paddocks and onto our airlings before I had a chance to properly process what was happening.

  But riding gave me plenty of time to think and worry. It wasn’t so much the idea of facing down an unimaginable evil that got to me. Though of course that was challenge enough. No, it was more the thought that I would have to give up my freedom and take men to my bed. The idea repelled me. The only time I’d ever imagined having sex, it had been with Zem, and then the fear that came with my imaginings had been so great I’d dismissed the whole idea and found a dozen reasons to justify my choice.

  Aye, I was now willing to admit it was fear that kept me from his bed. All my bluster and carry-on the day Airsha had told me I needed to bed Zem was gone now. It was one thing to have the freedom to choose when, or even if, I had sex with my best friend, it was another to have the Goddess taking my fate out of my own hands and condemning me to bond with four men, three of whom I didn’t even know. The shock of that had knocked all my bravado aside, leaving me cowering from my own shadow.

  Imagining facing four naked men, who would want my body and use it in bedplay, turned my blood to ice. Not that I’d experienced bedplay myself. My only experience had involved neither a bed nor any play. It had been brutal and sickening. And though I knew that wasn’t what sex between caring couples was like, it was how it remained in my head. Even though I knew Zem would never hurt me. Knew he’d cut off his own cock before willingly hurting me. But in my head...

  And if it was just a matter of submitting to four men, letting them meet their needs and then get on with our challenge, I could almost be okay with that. But the Goddess required more. I had to love them, and let myself be loved by them, for us to achieve the unity required to enhance our individual powers. The Goddess might bring these men to me, but I’d have to bind them to me with love. My mind revolted at the very idea.

  Love was something I didn’t really trust. I’d loved my Dah without restriction, but then I’d lost him to the sea when I was just ten suns old. I’d never loved like that again. Certainly not my Mam who’d dangled me in front of sick men, who liked little girls, as part of our cons. She never let them have me, of course. But it was always there in my mind—the possibility that one day she might let it play out, and one of those perverts would have me, for the good of the con. So loving her had always been tempered with dist
rust and caution.

  And it was only in the last two suns that I’d started to learn to love again. First Calun, a crush turned to brotherly love, then Airsha and the rest of the Airluds, Spot and finally— incredibly—Zem. They were my family now, but even the love I felt for them was limited.

  If I didn’t give all my heart, then I wouldn’t lose myself if something were to happen. Zem might fall in love with some other girl. Spot might rejoin his pod. Airsha and the Airluds might send me away ‘for my own good’. Or any or all of them could die. I’d come too close to losing Calun and then Zem to not be reminded that life was a fragile, tenuous thing. I couldn’t afford to lose myself if I lost them. So I loved with as much of my heart as I could afford to risk. And it had worked well enough.

  Until now.

  Now the Goddess would demand all of my heart. And my body and my soul. She would make me give myself away until there was nothing left of me.

  So now I lay in my little dorm room in the airling troopers’ quarters, wanting to go next door to Zem, but being too afraid of what he might say.

  A soft knock came at the door, and my body went onto high alert. Had something happened? Who would be disturbing me at this late turn?

  I rose and went to the rough wooden door. I could hear Zem’s thoughts on the other side of it, so I unlocked it and let him enter. His mind was in chaos, even more than usual. I took his hand and led him to my bed. Not for sex, but for comfort.

  Without a word, he curled his big body around mine and we lay in the darkness like that for some time. Finally, when his mind had slowed, and his counting had stopped, I spoke into the silence.

  “I’m afraid,” I admitted, almost glad to have it out there.

  “I know. So am I.”

  “Not of fighting this Jayger thing. Though I should be afraid of that, I suppose.”

  “I know. That’s not what scares me either.”